🕑 Added 2015-06-11 01:48:50 +0000 UTC
Testimonial One: Hans Van Ripper
After settling in at Sleepy Hollow, I began my investigation into the ghost I had been called to exorcise — the most important lesson I had learnt as a Watchman in training was to know and understand my target, to know where and how to attack it, and I did not intend to abandon that lesson on my first assignment as a fully-fledged member of the Night Watch.
I began my investigation by interviewing Hans Van Ripper, a choleric old farmer with whom I had been briefly acquainted on my way in to Sleepy Hollow.
"Can you describe the creature?"
"I did not see the monster for myself. I hadn't the courage to look out my window as it raced by."
"I see. Then —"
"But I remember the sound it made."
"The sound?"
"It was a terrible sound, a horrible sound, and I'll remember until the end of my days."
"Can you describe it for me?"
"I can. 'Twas like a rolling drumbeat, like cracks of thunder. Ba-da-ba-da, ba-da-ba-da —" his closed fists rapped knuckles-first on the wooden table between us — "every second, they came, so loud that the floor beneath my feet rattled. It felt like the entire world was falling apart around me. And as it got closer…"
"What? What happened?"
"I heard another sound, like a whine. But it wasn't, it was something far worse."
"What was it?"
"A scream. A terrible, horrible scream, long and drawn out, as though of the rusty hinges on an old door, but so, so much louder. And that was when I realized what I was hearing — I was hearing the scream of the damned, of a soul driven mad by the fires of Hell and unleashed upon the Earth to do the Devil's bidding."
As he described to me the sound made by the specter, I felt a chill sweep down my spine. As I learnt during my training, ordinary ghosts cannot interact much with the living. In fact, the presence of a malignant spirit is often inferred not from actual contact with it, but from the effects its actions have on the physical world — sudden cold snaps in the middle of a warm room, candles being snuffed out by an unseen hand, and things like doors and windows opening or closing by themselves.
A more corporeal spirit is proportionally more dangerous, because they can touch people, and they can be seen and act out much more completely. These types of ghosts, poltergeists, are often capable and perfectly willing to cause more damage and disruption than any ordinary spirit can, but even those aren't quite the same as what Hans Van Ripper was telling me haunted Sleepy Hollow.
"Are you a good Christian, Mister Crane?"
"I…Well, yes, I'd like to think —"
"That first night, I thought for well and sure that my time on this Earth was over, and I prayed God save my soul. What I heard that night, Mister Crane, it weren't no simple ghost. It was a demon, raised from the depths of the underworld to claim the soul of any poor fool who hadn't the sense to stay in his home. When I woke the next morning, I prayed to God again, thanking him for sparing me the night afore."
I stayed a few minutes more after that, asking for a few more details, and then I thanked him — "Thank you for your time." — and left. I made sure to be as polite in my departure as possible, because Hans Van Ripper had given me plenty of information for my investigation and plenty more to think on.
Even though I was off to a good start, however, I could not shake the feeling of unease that prickled along the back of my neck and curled unpleasantly in my middle. I had been called to Sleepy Hollow to exorcise a ghost, yes, and I had dealt with a poltergeist once during my training.
But the suspicion remained that I had stumbled into something far above my own capabilities — to wit, I was in over my head, and there was no one here to pull me out if I drowned.
